Pokemon Go Creator Niantic Shuts Down Three Games, One Game is Vaporware, Four Are On The Way, Is Niantic Going Down If the Next Project Fails?
Niantic is the company that is behind our favorite mobile game, and we all know which game that is.
The company is under fire these past couple of days, and we have to say, it is their own fault for that. Listening to your players, who at the same time bring you an enormous amount of money, is a good thing to do. They know what is good for the game. The more your players are pleased, the longer your company will stay alive.
Now, we have all heard in the past how many Niantic projects there were, but that was all. No press, no promotion, nothing. It is like these projects vanished into thin air. An example of this is Endgame. So many promises, and so many interesting glimpses, and ever since that, we have not heard a single word about Endgame.
The only successful projects that carry the Niantic name are Pokemon Go, Ingress and Pikmin. We are surprised that Pikmin is still alive, to be honest. Harry Potter, one of the projects that was supposed to be legendary, Niantic decided to put a lock on it in 2022, as well as Catan.
Other projects that are supposed to come out “soon” from Niantic are the following:
- Campfire (total rollout)
- Monster Hunter Now
- Marvel World of Heroes
- Peridot (coming tomorrow)
From what we see, the only successful source of income for Niantic currently is Pokemon Go, and even that source is on its last legs if the company continues to act the way they do. If their next project has the same fate as Endgame or Transformers, the only way to go down gracefully is if Niantic files for bankruptcy.
What do you think about Niantic? Where do they make their mistakes?
There are no more canceled games at the moment. Indeed Niantic just canceled one game, Wizards Unite. Transformers and Catan World Explorer were never released, they were stopped during beta.
Niantic describes itself as a company dedicated to social real world gaming. They made great mistakes with PoGo – but years ago! They introduced much too less local multiplayer content – just the raids in 2017 and nothing more. They introduced a friendship feature via codes, that made it possible to befriend and make XP while sitting on the couch instead of having to meet the friend in person. That is why PoGo got a conservative community that is not sociable and not interested in AR. Niantic didn’t serve for those sociable people who raided in 2017 and were interested in new local cooperative gameplay elements that are more complex than just pressing a button and so these people left.
The massive cryout because of the remote passes shows how wrong everything went: Normally a game like PoGo should have a community that likes meeting each other and raiding in person and uses remote passes only occassionally. It is a brave decision to make remote raiding more expensive. In short term it will cut Niantic’s income but in long term it is the only way to save the central idea of Niantic games as social realworld games! What we now need is the full release of Campfire and new challenging local multiplayer features, that brings those people back who liked raiding in 2017!
And regarding Monster Hunter Now: they shouldn’t do the same mistakes. Please introduce challenging local multiplayer with strategic elements from the first day on and make crossover with the console games! Because of its simple and repetitive gameplay PoGo has been taken over by those people who have nothing to do with gaming and who don’t like meeting others. This must be reversed!